


born between the cracks

by dabblingDilettante



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Genre: Gen, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 23:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16753333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dabblingDilettante/pseuds/dabblingDilettante
Summary: It's not every day a girl gets her gender validated with a magical sword that turns her into an amazonian princess.





	born between the cracks

**Author's Note:**

> i've been writing transfic since i got into fandom you think that im not about to lose my mind just because i have canon gays for once. you think im /not/ about to stretch my terrible trans fingers over everything? lets be gender. lets Gender Shit Up. lets all be gender in here.

There are a number of words which Adora does not know she does not know.

Birthday, party, pinata, horse, puppy, (cat is definitely known and Catra is very proud of herself for bringing in that concept), neon pink, feather cushioning, perfume, stir-fry, hot pot, cereal, genocide, to name a few.

"You're trans, then!" Glimmer shouts.

"Finally," Bow says, giving Adora an unexpected high five.  "Now that we outnumber Glimmer, we're only halfway to princess kingdom domination."

"What," Adora says.

There is the usual blank stare, with Bow and Glimmer smacking their hands to their faces, and then Adora's, and then the loud disbelieving wail as their eyes sparkle with the excitement of the world.

"Right, guys, okay.  Where's the dictionary."

 

\--

 

The useful thing about handhelds on the rebellion's side is that there isn't a need for clearance on most information.  There's less useful tactics information, but if Adora wants to know anything about history and language, at least that's all right there.  She kept rented books at the sides of her room with notebooks overflowing with random information she had convinced herself was useful, but Angella hadn't yet agreed to let her bring in filing cabinets or enough boards to post all the data Adora had gathered.  Mostly looked at her like she was crazy.  

"It's fine," Adora mutters.  "It's fine."

Glimmer had sat Adora down and said, "Listen, Bow knows all about this.  I'll leave it to him.

When she had left the room, Bow cleared his throat.  "The formal definition of trans ... ah, yes, let me get my notes."  Then he put his hands on Adora's shoulders and said, "It means we are too cool for school and we absolutely rock this place."

"Right," Adora said.

"No one around here will bother you about it, alright?  They're actually pretty chill here on Brightmoon.  Other places ..."  Bow shrugs.  "Well, not everyone's super quick to accept when their princess also happens to be a boy."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, I'll leave you to your books.  I wouldn't want to get in the way of your," with his eyes sparkling, "Textual adventures through our history."

Adora stared.  "...Yeeeeeah."

"I'll see you soon!"  He waved both his hands, walking backwards toward the door.  "Just lemme know if you get questions."

Adora likes Bow.  She really does.  Sometimes, though, he is really not helpful at all.

"It's.  Fine," she says, one more time.

 _Transgender_ is not a word that exists in the Horde's lexicon.  Much like most of the nonsense that Brightmoon has filled her head up with.  As she swipes through links and information, she rolls across her cot.  It was nice to think that there was more to the world than danger and fighting.  It was so overfull of stuff it was almost maddening.

Gender wasn't much of a thing back in the Hoard either.  If you grew out your hair, you just had to make sure you had something to hold it back with.  In Catra's case, her hair always stood on end, so she never had to worry about it getting in her eyes.  There were names they had taken, made up by children with no sense, but everyone had funky names back there.  There was someone who went by Kyle.  If that wasn't wild, nothing was.  Adora wasn't the smartest name to choose, but she had liked it as a kid.  It was fun to say.  She liked how it sounded in Catra's mouth, her name.

Glimmer sometimes mentions how cute Adora is - pretty, lovely in a dress.  More words to learn.  She still doesn't know how to use them well.  In the Horde, it wasn't being pretty.  It was being useful.  Compact.  Strong.

Catra got referred to as she, and hers, and that little goblin who keeps stealing my lunch.  Adora liked that too.  Not that it bothered her much what people referred to her as.  But it was another nice sound to hear and have.  In some terrible way, Adora was happy as long as she made people happy.  When Shadow Weaver was proud of her - when the team was amazed by her - when she did the right thing.  "He" was so cool, out there, wasn't much different than "She" was so cool.

But it wasn't -

The thing about the Horde is, you don't get to choose how you were born.  But since you lost your family, you have to make yourself into something new.  Wanting to be a girl or wanting to be a boy or not really wanting either - there weren't words for that in war.  There never are.  But she liked being by Catra's side.  The look of it, when the two of them were brushing each other's hair.  Holding out their legs to show off how hairy they both were and laughing about it.

Girls were kind of different out here in Brightmoon.  Though Adora had practiced to make her voice sound right to her ears with Catra for years and though Shadow Weaver had allowed her pieces of magic to appear along how she said she wanted to appear, it wasn't like the girls out here.  It wasn't even the appearance of it.  It wasn't that she was - whatever the word was - trans.

Her hands brush down the sword and she sighs.

"I don't even know what a girl is," she mutters.

The sword turns her into She-ra and - that means tall, powerful, muscular, overflowing with mystical energy with great hair to boot.  And for whatever reason, She-ra was a power granted to young women through the millennia.  Apparently, she fell into that group, somewhere along the line.

In her hand-held, Brightmoon's database indicates transgender people to have existed for millennia.  That makes Adora laugh.  "I wonder how many of us got magic swords."  Transgender men and women.  Nonbinary, agender, bigender, pangender, the list went on with cultural experiences and it was an overload.  All so strange.

 

\--

 

"You doing okay?" Bow says, hardly an hour later.  The top of his head peeks through, his voice muffled by the door.

"Oh yeah!  Yeah, peachy!"  Adora giggles.  "Doin' great over here, Bow."

"Mmm."  He steps through, hands pressed together.  "I see.  You've got data overload.  The only cure for that is 10 CC's of running around, stat."

"Nah," Adora says.  "No, it's alright.  It's just weird."

"What is?"

"Trans...ness?  Gender being a thing?"  Adora kicks her feet into the air from where she lays on her cot.  "I dunno, I get princesses, but I don't get the whole.  Being a girl thing."

"Oh, do you not ... really feel like a girl, then?"

"Bow, I don't know what I want to eat for dinner tonight.  I'm used to slop being shoved onto my plate.  ...listen, all I know for sure is that ... I like being called Adora.  I like when people say 'She' and 'That weird girl eating all the food at this party again.'  I like comfortable clothes and I like punching stuff and I like when the three of us paint fake mustaches on ourselves when we hang out with Seahawk and I like ... being here!"  Adora swings her sword up.  "And the whole turning into a massive princess with the power to throw a tank is also pretty great."

"Yeah," Bow says.  "I wish I could throw a tank."  But at that, he sits down next to her.  "Listen, I don't think it's all about picking a name or a side.  You can just sit here with me and we can be cool gender buddies.  We'll have matching jackets and we'll get them embroidered and it will be great."  Bow chuckles.  "But ...listen.  I think the whole gender stuff is a lot about choice, but it's also a lot about what you're used to.  I grew up with a lot of great people and Glimmer has always been way too supportive.  She'd probably kill a man for either of us.  So when I was a kid and I knew I was a boy, I just ... latched onto it and got a lot of happiness out of that.  But ... I guess you never really grew up with gender as much of a thing, like we did out here?  So.  I guess it might seem broken to some people, but it doesn't have to be a broken way to think of yourself.  Not if it works for you.  You don't need to take all our definitions just to fit in.  We've got a history because we're always making something new for ourselves.  So, y'know.  Do your own thing.  Your gender is being a cool tank-throwing Sword Princess and I'm all about that."

"That sounds like a mouthful," Adora giggles.  "It sounds kinda try-hard."

"Well, not if you think about how I'm a rad arrow-slinging tech crop top knight.  It's pretty great, Adora."

"What, the crop tops?"

"No," he says.  "Well, that too, but also the being yourself and having fun with it!  That's what we're fighting for, y'know.  So everyone can be free and safe to be what we want to be."

"...I get it."  Adora stares at her ceiling, the constellations marked along it.  "At the end of the day, this is just She-ra's thing."

It makes her think back to Catra.  Maybe she'd feel even more betrayed to hear Adora building this strange identity neither of them ever had words for.  Living on magic that Shadow Weaver granted her instead of throwing it away when Catra felt Adora had thrown her away.  It makes her heart hurt, the contradiction of being alive.

"I think I can live with that," she murmurs.

If Adora could build herself into something real and happy, even on the scraps of the hell she had grown up in - 

Maybe Catra could too.

**Author's Note:**

> i feel bad for leaving glimmer out of gender squad but  
> ive got an emotion about her and catra thinking about gender later in life.  
> love that trans feel.


End file.
